Pershing Square Renew has dissolved

As the CRA/LA successor agency goes into closed session today to take up the matter of the sale of Bunker Hill Parcel Y-1 (aka Angels Landing) to MarcFarlane Partners, we checked the California Charities Registry and discovered that Jose Huizar's nonprofit Pershing Square Renew has filed a request to dissolve. Attorney General Xavier Becerra accepted the nonprofit's statement that it has no assets—hmm, did that million dollar donation check ever clear? It's not on their 990s—and has approved the dissolution process.

We still believe the best solution for Pershing Square is to restore it to John Parkinson's beloved 1910 design, with his later addition of mid-block walkways, and we will continue to advocate for this popular and effective path. 

And we think the sweetheart Angels Landing deal should be voided in light of the ongoing public corruption investigation that taints every project that passed through Jose Huizar's PLUM Committee, and particularly those in his district, CD14. 

Pershing Square “Redesign” Moves Forward, Slowly and Without Funding

On Monday, embattled Councilman Jose Huizar appeared in Pershing Square with representatives of the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks and French architecture firm Agence Ter to announce the first progress update in two years on his much-touted “radically flat” park redesign.

The short answer: it’s not happening. And that’s good news for the thousands of Angelenos who are certain that the best redesign for L.A.’s oldest public park is an updated return to John Parkinson’s beloved 1910 design. 

Since the FBI seized Jose Huizar’s City Hall files in November 2018, the one-time fundraising powerhouse has lost his Midas touch. Lacking the hundreds of thousands of developer dollars required to keep his Pershing Square Renew non-profit operating, much less the millions needed to actually pay for Agence Ter’s scheme, Huizar’s grand vision has been supplanted by the more modest aims of the Department of Recreation and Parks. 

A relatively small sum in developer Quimby fees has been diverted to the Pershing Square project, to cover the multi-year cost of removing and adapting architectural elements of the Legoretta + Olin design, improving the elevators, and planting trees. In a decade, if $85 Million can be found, Agence Ter’s design is to be completed. 

Don’t hold your breath.

It’s not Agence Ter’s fault that they participated in a political design competition that ignored wide-spread public sentiment favoring restoration of John Parkinson’s classic park. And their winning design has some attractive elements. 

But with Jose Huizar no longer making major land use decisions from his 4th floor City Hall office—R.I.P. Parker Center and Sixth Street Bridge—and unlikely to ascend to any higher office, there’s no compelling reason for the Angelenos of 2030 to finish what he started. 

The right design, Pershing Square’s classic look, is ready, willing and able to serve the people of 2030 and beyond. 

We launched our petition seven years ago, before Jose Huizar’s political design competition was announced. We even got him to lie, on video, that the community would have an opportunity to vote for the Parkinson design. We will continue to advocate for the restoration of John Parkinson’s classic park design, and for the respectful treatment of the park’s historic sculptures. 

We don’t know what’s coming next for Los Angeles or for Pershing Square, but we do know that the failure of the top-down Pershing Square Renew scheme is a win for transparency and public accountability. So stay tuned and we’ll see YOU in Pershing Square!   

California Attorney General: Jose Huizar's Pershing Square Renew Non-Profit Delinquent

More than two years have passed since the last public presentation about Councilman Jose Huizar's putative plan to "renew" Pershing Square. At that event, the architects revealed serious disparities between their 2016 design competition entry and what can actually be built on top of the park's garage. Under the revised rendering from Agence Ter, views of the landmark Biltmore Hotel would be blocked by a large LED pergola. 

In the months that followed, the FBI raided Huizar's City Hall office. Pershing Square Renew director Eduardo Santana left the organization. The park renewal project appeared to be stalled.    

On January 29, Jose Huizar broke the silence, tweeting: "Join us next Monday at the Pershing Square Redesign press conference. Learn about the exciting new design planned for the City’s oldest park.  Monday, February 3, 2020 8:30 a.m."

"New" design? Wasn't that already announced in 2016? 

Curiously, Pershing Square Renew was not listed among the organizations hosting the press conference, even though that non-profit, a Huizar-formed initiative operating in association with his office, has been fundraising for a Pershing Square redesign since 2014.  

What's happened to Pershing Square Renew? The organization's website no longer resolves (summer 2019 archive link here), and according to the California Attorney General's Registry of Charitable Trusts, the non-profit's status is Delinquent, with numerous missing tax filings and repeated mailings returned to Sacramento from bad addresses. 

We hope a reporter will ask Jose Huizar about Pershing Square Renew and its finances at Monday's press conference. 

As for the Pershing Square Restoration Society, we continue to advocate for the restoration of John Parkinson's 1910 design for Pershing Square, and encourage interested people to sign the petition.